Cambrian Explosion: afterthought (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, October 04, 2013, 17:39 (4068 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: My definition of intelligence is not just the use of information but being able to analyze concepts presented by that information, formulate new theories from those concepts. In other words what we humans do with our brains and our consciousness. Cells don't do this. -I have pointed out to you that your definition restricts intelligence to humans, whereas my own excludes self-awareness and takes decision-making as one of its crucial factors. -DAVID: Of course whole multicellular organisms, as you describe, have some ability at decision-making, but you are confusing the issue. I've been arguing about single cells or one-celled organisms. They are automatons.-I have pointed out that single cells exchange information, communicate and cooperate (more manifestations of intelligence) to form communities. In any case, you have already told us that ants (multicellular) are automatons. According to your definition, all organisms are automatons except humans (though even our independent intelligence may be questionable, since we too comprise communities of cells ... one factor in the debate on free will).-DAVID: You have been confused all along. First of all, we have no theory of multicellularity origination. We don't know why or how it happened. A very recent conference admitted this.-http://www.multicellularity2013.com/resources/abstracts2013-09-28.pdf-Ah David, you are truly the Floyd Mayweather Jr of the debating ring. Every potential knock-out punch neatly sidestepped. We are not discussing the apparently oft repeated origin of multicellularity, but whether cells are "intelligent". As I've emphasized over and over again, this hypothesis is meant only to explain the course of evolution, and it leaves open the question of how the original cell acquired its intelligence. You are confusing the hypothesis of the intelligent cell with the hypothesis of panpsychism. The conference speakers repeatedly talk of cooperation, cell-cell communication, signalling. When you stated "bluntly" that cells do not exchange information, BBella drew your attention to a lecture entitled "How do cells talk to each other and what do they say?" It stated categorically that they did exchange information and also that "cells make different decisions depending on the input." You even drew our attention to a paper by a retired cell biologist who stated the same thing, but you make no reference to that, and when Margulis laughs at people who think bacteria do not have some form of (non-human) consciousness, you insist that she would agree with you if you both agreed on your definition (which of course is exactly what she laughs at). In your examples, you continually focus on the automatic means by which information is acquired (analogous to the manner in which we humans acquire information through the automatic mechanisms of our senses), and prefer to gloss over the communications, cooperation and decision-making that are the hallmark of intelligence as I define it.
 
DAVID: You claim that each cell works within a committee of cells, which is goal oriented originally in the dim past to struggle toward the goal of a functional kidney, without understanding the requirements of such an organ. Hunt and peck to a kidney really is poppycock. We are full circle.-This is quite wrong. My hypothesis (not a claim) is based on the fact that all organs and organisms comprise communities of cells which at some time did not exist, and which therefore came together in a hitherto unknown combination. You have a theory: that some unknown, unknowable, indefinable power preprogrammed the first cells to produce every new combination, from eukaryotes to humans (apart from an occasional intervention). Neo-Darwinists also have a theory: that the new combinations came about through random mutations. Some scientists, however, inform us that cells communicate, cooperate, take decisions, combine etc., and I'm suggesting that the cell communities themselves invented new combinations as and when conditions either demanded or allowed them. No "goal", no "plan" of any kind, other than survival and continuation, leading to the higgledy-piggledy course of evolution, from one invention and historical phase to another, just like the course of human inventions and human history. Let me repeat, this leaves wide open the question of where the "intelligence" came from. It is an attempt to explain the course of evolution, and as more and more discoveries are made about the complex nature of the cell, I still don't see it as any more unbelievable than your divine preprogramming of all innovations, or Darwin's random mutations.